I think a key component to professional (and personal) success is to always be learning new things. It doesn’t matter if you’re reading, watching, or listening… absorbing new information is always good. Being that I like to read a lot I was really excited to learn about Oyster – a Spotify-like subscription service for books… and wanted to share it with other readers out there.

Oyster  allows you to read an unlimited amount of books for $9.95 a month. As someone who reads just about one book per month (digitally already), I’d pretty much be breaking even from a price perspective. I’m also not someone who is sentimental about holding onto books, lending them out, building a library, etc.

They are having a free month trial at the moment, so I decided to give it a whirl.

Things I’m really liking so far:

• As someone who works in the Human Resources/Talent field, I love to read about leadership, companies who do really innovative things for their employees, and company culture. Oyster had Onward by Howard Schultz (a book about the history of Starbucks, why Howard Schultz decided to return as CEO during their biggest rough patch, and how he brought the company back to the strong brand we know and love today) so I dove right in. PS – Definitely recommend it so far!
• The app is nicely designed for both the iPhone and iPad, making it easy to browse through titles, genres, top picks, and more
• You can download books to your device so you don’t need to be on wifi to read them
• No more committing to buy a book based on a short summary – read as much as you want and no need to feel guilty about not finishing it
• Spotify and Netflix-type features such as a social element (see what your friends are reading) and a recommendation element (you liked this, so read this next)

Things I’d like to see (and will determine if I pay the monthly fee):

It really comes down to one thing that will make or break Oyster for me – more titles. Oyster Books has already struck a deal with Harper Collins and many other publishers. In fact, they have over 100,000 books so far… but a few of the things I searched for weren’t yet available which means I’d have to pay for them elsewhere.

Anyway, you can check it out for yourself (and get a free month): https://www.oysterbooks.com/join

What are your favorite books that have helped you in your career? Leave me a comment, I’d love to check them out!